kallend 2,182 #1 April 27, 2012 Here are the 10 most peaceful states for 2012: Maine Vermont New Hampshire Minnesota Utah North Dakota Washington Hawaii Rhode Island Iowa Here are the 10 least peaceful states for 2012: Louisiana Tennessee Nevada Florida Arizona Missouri Texas Arkansas South Carolina Mississippi Wow, there must be some angry people in those RED states. To create this annual coast-to-coast ranking, researchers looked at five key measurements. Each state's peace index score was determined by analyzing its homicide, violent crime, policing, and prison rates, as well as by the availability of guns among its residents. www.webmd.com/balance/news/20120425/most-peaceful-least-peaceful-states?ecd=soc_tw_am_news_peacestates... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airdvr 210 #2 April 27, 2012 Quote Here are the 10 most peaceful states for 2012: Maine Vermont New Hampshire Minnesota Utah North Dakota Washington Hawaii Rhode Island Iowa Here are the 10 least peaceful states for 2012: Louisiana Tennessee Nevada Florida Arizona Missouri Texas Arkansas South Carolina Mississippi Wow, there must be some angry people in those RED states. To create this annual coast-to-coast ranking, researchers looked at five key measurements. Each state's peace index score was determined by analyzing its homicide, violent crime, policing, and prison rates, as well as by the availability of guns among its residents. www.webmd.com/balance/news/20120425/most-peaceful-least-peaceful-states?ecd=soc_tw_am_news_peacestates You had me until the 'guns available' category. This study is flawed.Please don't dent the planet. Destinations by Roxanne Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ryoder 1,590 #3 April 27, 2012 Quote You had me until the 'guns available' category. This study is flawed. Agreed. "Peaceful" is about how people behave, not about what they own."There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lawrocket 3 #4 April 27, 2012 With the exception of Hawaii (and to a limited extent Washington), the most peaceful states have something in common: they get friggin cold in the winter. Gang banging is like construction: there are seasons for it. A very very large number of homicides are committed by gang bangers. The other states are generally warmer states. (Hawaii also has an easier time controlling violent crime because it takes effort to get there or get out). Washington doesn't get as cold (except Eastern Washington) but they also average five or six inches of rain a month from November to February in Seattle. Gangbangers do not like to be either cold or wet. Sure, Missouri gets cold but it has a couple of large cities (where violence occurs most frequently. East St. Louis, for example, has a long history of being a place to generally avoid). Northern Tennessee sees its cold, but Memphis has an average January high of 49 in January. Nashville averages 46. The murder rate bears a relationship to average for on-time arrivals and departures for airlines. The better the weather, the better the on-time rate for airlines is and the more murders there will be. My wife is hotter than your wife. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #5 April 27, 2012 QuoteWith the exception of Hawaii (and to a limited extent Washington), the most peaceful states have something in common: they get friggin cold in the winter. Gang banging is like construction: there are seasons for it. A very very large number of homicides are committed by gang bangers. yes, the weather factor leaped out from this list. Nevada is a harder one to classify, but the gambling/money/sin element are the decider. This can be seen as a seasonal matter as well. Homicides in the Bay Area are much higher in the summertime than in winter. It's warm, sunny, people are out. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #6 April 27, 2012 QuoteEach state's peace index score was determined by analyzing its homicide, violent crime, policing, and prison rates, as well as by the availability of guns among its residents. Re: Gun ownership Note that at least two of the states in the "most peaceful" category are also states with very high levels of gun ownership. That's one sign that this study is BS. In addition to these problems about gun ownership being an invalid measure of peace, there is another problem on top of that. They count violent crime as a negative, which is fine. But then they also count number of people in prison as a negative too. So what that means is, a state would be "more peaceful" by their measure if there was a lot of violent crime, but none of of those violent criminals were in prison. And that's the opposite of what it should be. A state that actually did a good job of catching and imprisoning their violent criminals would score a double whammy against them by this method. The more violent criminals there are in prison, the MORE peaceful it will be. The more violent criminals running loose on the streets, the LESS peaceful it will be. Criminals in prison should offset violent crime on the street. Is this crap what passes for medical logic these days? Gun-o-phobia strikes again! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DrewEckhardt 0 #7 April 27, 2012 QuoteGang banging is like construction: there are seasons for it. A very very large number of homicides are committed by gang bangers. The other states are generally warmer states. (Hawaii also has an easier time controlling violent crime because it takes effort to get there or get out). Washington doesn't get as cold (except Eastern Washington) but they also average five or six inches of rain a month from November to February in Seattle. Gangbangers do not like to be either cold or wet. Economic disparity also goes with pleasant climates that attract people willing to outbid each other for limited land. People kill each other more often when their neighbors are a lot wealthier than when they're more uniformly well-off or poor. Here's one study: http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/iiahr2001.pdf Seattle and Vancouver are pretty close geographically, although there's more economic disparity and a higher murder rate in Seattle (unless you exclude the minorities which are disproportionately poor in Seattle and look only at the economically similar white populations where you find those in Seattle are safer). Quote Sure, Missouri gets cold but it has a couple of large cities (where violence occurs most frequently. East St. Louis, for example, has a long history of being a place to generally avoid). East St. Louis is in Illinois across the Mississippi river from St. Louis, MO. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #8 April 27, 2012 Quote Economic disparity also goes with pleasant climates that attract people willing to outbid each other for limited land. People kill each other more often when their neighbors are a lot wealthier than when they're more uniformly well-off or poor. with Hawaii still being the outlier. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyDekker 1,465 #9 April 27, 2012 QuoteNote that at least two of the states in the "most peaceful" category are also states with very high levels of gun ownership. That's one sign that this study is BS. The study is bullshit, because two states listed as most peaceful have very high levels of gun ownership? Surprising statement coming from you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DrewEckhardt 0 #10 April 27, 2012 QuoteQuote Economic disparity also goes with pleasant climates that attract people willing to outbid each other for limited land. People kill each other more often when their neighbors are a lot wealthier than when they're more uniformly well-off or poor. with Hawaii still being the outlier. Ranked by Gini coefficient Hawaii is tied for 8th least income inequality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient Perhaps there aren't more disproportionately wealthy people there because it is an outlier - as a working professional you'd have a harder time transacting business with the rest of the United States out in the middle of the Pacific ocean (I wouldn't live there for that reason). All the 10 most peaceful states except Rhode Island are in the half of our states with the least income inequality ranked by Gini Index Maine 12 Vermont 19 New Hampshire 4 Minnesota 13 Utah 1 North Dakota 8 Washington 16 Hawaii 8 Rhode Island 39 Iowa 5 All of the 10 least peaceful except Nevada (which would be 25th without three ties for each of 8th and 13th place) are in the half of our states with the most income inequality Louisiana 47 Tennessee 40 Nevada 21 Florida 46 Arizona 27 Missouri 27 Texas 43 Arkansas 30 South Carolina 32 Mississippi 40 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,182 #11 April 27, 2012 QuoteQuote Here are the 10 most peaceful states for 2012: Maine Vermont New Hampshire Minnesota Utah North Dakota Washington Hawaii Rhode Island Iowa Here are the 10 least peaceful states for 2012: Louisiana Tennessee Nevada Florida Arizona Missouri Texas Arkansas South Carolina Mississippi Wow, there must be some angry people in those RED states. To create this annual coast-to-coast ranking, researchers looked at five key measurements. Each state's peace index score was determined by analyzing its homicide, violent crime, policing, and prison rates, as well as by the availability of guns among its residents. www.webmd.com/balance/news/20120425/most-peaceful-least-peaceful-states?ecd=soc_tw_am_news_peacestates You had me until the 'guns available' category. This study is flawed. Nonsense - it's one of many variables, and guns are readily available in both categories. No difficulty getting a gun in Utah, N. Dakota, N. Hampshire or Iowa.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #12 April 27, 2012 QuoteQuote with Hawaii still being the outlier. Ranked by Gini coefficient Hawaii is tied for 8th least income inequality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient Perhaps there aren't more disproportionately wealthy people there because it is an outlier - as a working professional you'd have a harder time transacting business with the rest of the United States out in the middle of the Pacific ocean (I wouldn't live there for that reason). Yet they go there on vacation in huge droves. As best I can tell, the GINI coefficient ignores tourism, which is a mistake for destination locales. And there's no doubt that there's a bit of hostility to mainlanders. Also, I'd take issue with an ordinal ranking of states that have minute differences. How significant is .0433 versus .0461? 25 states are contained within that range. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
brenthutch 444 #13 April 28, 2012 QuoteQuoteQuote Here are the 10 most peaceful states for 2012: Maine Vermont New Hampshire Minnesota Utah North Dakota Washington Hawaii Rhode Island Iowa Here are the 10 least peaceful states for 2012: Louisiana Tennessee Nevada Florida Arizona Missouri Texas Arkansas South Carolina Mississippi Wow, there must be some angry people in those RED states. To create this annual coast-to-coast ranking, researchers looked at five key measurements. Each state's peace index score was determined by analyzing its homicide, violent crime, policing, and prison rates, as well as by the availability of guns among its residents. www.webmd.com/balance/news/20120425/most-peaceful-least-peaceful-states?ecd=soc_tw_am_news_peacestates You had me until the 'guns available' category. This study is flawed. Nonsense - it's one of many variables, and guns are readily available in both categories. No difficulty getting a gun in Utah, N. Dakota, N. Hampshire or Iowa. It is difficult to get 70 degree temp in Dec-Feb though, even with global warming. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
